Fumbling
by Diane Langley
Summary: "Thank you, Rory. You were the chance encounter that changed my life," he said quietly. His voice was not emotional, not romantic, and the simple, matter-of-fact way he said it made it all the more honest.
1. A Chance Encounter

Rory Gilmore pinched her nose momentarily in shock as she entered the makeshift hospital and tried not to gape. She had heard about the practically primeval conditions where medicine was practiced over here in Afghanistan, but that had still not prepared her to see soldiers lying on tables instead of beds in an old Taliban building with no cooling system besides kind souls with hand-powered fans. Was there a bed shortage in America now? Could they truly not even send over hospital beds for the men who were being injured and dying for their country? She swallowed her disgust to put on a business-like smile. Being an overseas journalist was not all glamorous excitement; in fact, it was hardly that at all.

She made the rounds easily, explaining her purpose to the people in charge, flashing her Huntzberger-approved press badge and asking questions, jotting things down on her yellow legal pad. Soldiers talked to her willingly, some of them hungry for a pretty civilian face that could remind them of a wife, a girlfriend, a daughter, a mother, a cousin, whomever they needed to be reminded of to feel better. She was nearly done when she spotted an oddly familiar soldier reclining on one of the few real hospital beds in the room. Even in the sweltering heat, he lay under a thin sheet, covered from the shoulders down. There was sweat on his upper lip, but otherwise, he showed no signs of discomfort. His blue eyes caught her attention from under his camouflage hat, and suddenly, she knew exactly who he was: Tristan.

She had not thought about Tristan in years. Or at least, she had not actively thought about him. But there was a time in her life when she had thought about him a lot, wondered, pondered, puzzled, and hoped. He had been the subject of much of her brain power once upon a time, some romantic and much platonic. She started walking toward him.

"Excuse me, sir," she approached, clearing her throat nervously. "Of course you won't remember me, but…"

He looked at her and chuckled. "Rory Gilmore. I remember you. I wondered how many times you'd loop this tiny room before you'd notice me."

"Why didn't you say something?" She asked. Sudden shyness overtook her, and she fiddled her hands together, too shy to look at him. The last time she had seen him was so long ago that now he was just a stranger, but still the memory of high school and their youthful flirtation made a blush rise to her cheeks. The last time she had seen him, he had been walking away for military school, back bent in defeat, and she had wanted to call out to him, to say something, anything. Now, he was lying in a hospital bed in a foreign country, razor burn on his strong jaw, and steel in his eyes that had not existed when she knew him. She wondered if he could still flip on that charmer's smile at a moment's notice. If he could, he did not do it now.

"You seemed to be working, and I've got nothing if I don't have time," he replied, shrugging slightly. His voice was not bitter or sympathy-seeking, just honest. "Pull up a chair and interview me, if you like."

She looked around and saw an overturned crate that would be serviceable. Carrying it back over, she tried to swallow her discomfort at seeing him like this. "So how have you been, Tristan? Since leaving Chilton all those years ago?" She felt the question burst out of her, and he smiled knowingly.

"Is that a normal question you would ask a person in my condition for your job?"

"No." She hated making the concession, but she did. Taking out her legal pad and pencil, she looked down at her other notes on the page. A theme, hardship and doubt versus dedication and pride, already leapt out at her from the other notes, and she knew that she was going to be able to write a really excellent piece (or two or three) from this trip overseas to the war zone. She did not need any more interviews, in theory, but more material was always better than less, and besides, every woman has one moment from their girlhood that has never made sense to her, and Tristan's departure was that moment for her. He had walked away from her, and nothing either of them had said had made the moment anything more than a schoolmate's departure. Yet she had been haunted by its memory for a long time afterward, wondering where he was, who he was, where life had taken him. She could not walk away from this rare opportunity to know.

"Tell me your name and title first, please," she said, not looking up from her paper.

"Captain Tristan DuGrey." His voice was emotionless, flat, but not unfriendly.

"Tell me about yourself, Captain DuGrey," she replied.

"I direct a unit of 120 men and women here in ground operations here in Afghanistan, but that is all I can really tell you. I am not at leisure to discuss anything more about the covert operation." She could not resist looking up now to see his eyes intently on her. "But you are not interested in that anyway."

"I'm not?" She coughed once in surprise.

"You're interested in me, and if your belief that I could be more than an arrogant playboy was right. Was Rory Gilmore a good influence on me after all – that's what you want to know."

She looked up, eyes wide, but felt that she was nodding. There was no way she could deny that he had just hit the nail on the head. "That's not good for an interview, though," she confessed slowly. "And you wanted me to treat you like any other soldier in this situation, so instead… tell me why you're here."

"I'm here to fight for my country," he replied. The reply was trite, but an unexpected smile appeared on his lips that made it clear he knew it was trite. He shrugged again, and she smiled back. She liked to hear that answer from him, even though it frustrated her when it came from other soldiers. There was nothing the Tristan from her high school years would have considered worth fighting for.

"What motivates you? The whole country? Or is there a wife at home, kids, someone you want to make the country safe for?" It was her trite response to his trite response, but she was waiting with bated breath for the answer. She had no idea how this man could affect the grown woman she had become the same way that the boy had affected her as a girl. His ability to make her hold her breath and wait on him was amazing; in a way, she wondered if she had been waiting all these years just to find out what had become of the captivating DuGrey boy.

The DuGrey man, though, looked at her intently, looking into her brown eyes as if he knew everything she was thinking. Then he averted his gaze and swallowed slowly, wetting his lips. The air between them seemed to crackle with anticipation. "You."

She choked on the spit she was swallowing when she heard the word, and he suddenly looked unbearably embarrassed. "Not you specifically, necessarily," he qualified slowly, caution in his tone. "But I'd think of you and how all across the nation, there were girls like you, smart girls curled up on benches reading their books and trying to help dumb boys like me, and I figured I could make the country safe for them. So they could keep pushing guys like me to grow up."

It was not until his voice stopped that Rory realized she was sniffling, her mouth twisted in awkward grimace as she tried not to lose her composure. She had seen soldiers reunited with their children, insurgents blown up in front of her, and editors coat her beloved writing in red ink, and none of it had made her cry since she had put on her tough girl clothes and taken her first plane to work as an overseas correspondent. Yet here she was, smiling at him weakly and trying to keep the water from falling from her eyes.

"That's a good reason," she finally managed to say, realizing she needed to write his answer down on her paper but feeling too shocked and touched to even know how to word it. He reached an arm out from under his sheet toward her, and she leaned in, drawn by invisible strings, until her cheek and his hand met. He brushed away the tear under her eye.

"Thank you, Rory. You were the chance encounter that changed my life," he said quietly. His voice was not emotional, not romantic, and the simple, matter-of-fact way he said it made it all the more honest. She smiled a watery smile.

"I always knew you were better than those idiots you hung out with," she said softly, the only thing she could think of to say. He chuckled.

"I may not have been better, but I did have someone tell me I was."

They sat for a while that way, his hand drifting down to take a hold of hers. In the comfortable silence, Rory became aware of an unspoken presence that she could not understand. He was not frowning, and his eyes were not sad or weak, but something was wrong. His gratitude to her, his kind statement, was sincere, but something had prompted it, something even greater than her unexpected appearance here. She looked around the room, at the quiet bustling, and thought of the other soldiers she had talked to. There were sprained ankles, stomach flu cases, and psychological problems that had benched the others she had spoken to, and a sudden dark premonition settled over her as she looked at Tristan, still covered by the sheet except for the one arm that he had slipped out to hold her hand. Without asking, she reached over and yanked the sheet down.

There was an empty sleeve where his other arm should have been.

She clapped a hand to her gaping mouth in shock as he looked down, shame on his face. He was missing an arm, a whole limb severed from his body. He could never have that back. She could feel his shame in the air now, visceral. He thought he was less now, not a whole man. He was wrong. She reached out, putting her curled hand under his chin and lifting it up. "Thank you for making the country safe for girls like me to root for heroes like you." She smiled, forcing the sadness from his face and eyes as she spoke.

But even as she did so, she wanted to turn away and weep for him.

X

It was the most unconventional breakfast table ever. The food itself was conventional, though plentiful with sausage, bacon, hashbrowns, croissants, sliced citrus fruits, and poached eggs. It was the table's occupants that made it so unusual. At the head of the table sat the handsome blond leader of The Huntzberger Group, sipping a cup of coffee and reading the morning paper. Logan's wife, Marianna, was sticking her small fruit fork into a slice of grapefruit and pulling out bite-sized pieces and sugaring them individually. It was common behavior for her during her current pregnancy. Next to her, there was their toddler daughter, Vivian, sitting up on a cushion, and finger-picking off of her breakfast plate. And finally, next to her, sat the Lorelai Gilmore better known as Rory eating a buttered croissant and drinking orange juice. This setup was not uncommon in the Huntzberger home, however, because as a star press agent and close family friend, Rory was always welcome.

This morning, Marianna had specifically called Rory to come over bright and early and dine with them, which was Rory's first sign that the other woman was up to something. Marianna was mischievous and frivolous but sweet as sugar, and Rory loved her. She never could have predicted that her once oh-so-serious boyfriend, the man who proposed to her upon graduation, would become a platonic friend and that she would spend time with his wife and child in their preposterously huge house all the time. It was not the life she had envisioned for herself, especially at 29, but she liked it. Except for right now while she was waiting to find out what Marianna was up to; the redhead was smiling at her grapefruit in a way that her husband obviously did not notice but her dear friend did.

"So Rory…" Marianna finally said, smirking. "I need to talk to you about something very… intriguing."

"What would that something be?" Rory asked, raising an eyebrow and taking a sip of her drink. She also gently removed Vivian's eager fingers from her croissant and noticed Logan's incredible focus as he read his paper without looking up at his family scene plus one. Suddenly, Marianna reached under the table, rather quickly for a woman who was eight months pregnant, and lifted up a copy of _The New York Times_ from several days ago. She tapped a manicured finger on the paper.

"There was an excerpt from your upcoming book, Miss Gilmore, in the Sunday _Times_," Marianna waved the issue in the air as if it was scandalous and delightful. "Did you read it?"

Rory chuckled. "Better than that. I wrote it."

"Har de har har, comedy queen," the society wife was undeterred. "Let me read it to you then if you are going to refuse to acknowledge what you must _know_ I am talking about." She fanned the paper out dramatically and cleared her throat. "Logan, dear, please try to pay attention. I am about to woefully embarrass your company's big reporter."

Logan looked up and smiled. "Mari, I always try to ignore anything that involves you embarrassing poor Rory. She's an undeserving victims of your wiles, much like myself." He did not look back down to his paper, though, instead propping himself up on his elbow and looking intently at his wife. Rory did not fail to notice the soft, loving gaze and felt a stab of jealousy. Not because it was Logan giving the gaze to another woman but because it was a man giving the gaze to a woman whose thirtieth birthday was not yet looming ahead of her. Lord, sometimes she was an awfully pathetic successful career woman.

"Let me begin," Marianna said dramatically. "'The soldier looked out at me with steely blue eyes that seemed to look straight through me, and I looked at him, solid and strong, the man between me and everything I know I should be scared of, and suddenly I felt no fear of those dangers because he was there. This soldier was there. Then I saw it: the emptiness where his left arm should be. He had given up an arm in the fight, an arm for me, and I found myself unable to ask him about it. All I could do was cry my first tears since I boarded my first plane to the Middle East while he held my hand with his good arm.' - Rory, darling, this is harlequin romance, not journalistic reporting. Tell me about this man!"

Rory looked down at her napkin, which was situated politely in her lap, and tried to pretend she had not just heard her own words, her very risky words, read aloud in a breathy voice by a dear friend. She had been mortified when she saw that the _Times_ had chosen that one unusual, atypical segment of the book to excerpt. Much of the rest of the book was pure journalism, objective, hard-hitting, and powerful, and she knew that the book was going to be just what the Huntzberger Group wanted to begin its new publishing house with a bang. She was proud of it, too; she had never expected to turn her journalism into full length books, but now it seemed like a perfectly logical step to have taken. Or rather, it had until Marianna had just read her words aloud like that, making them seem impossibly romantic.

"He was a one-armed patient of a military hospital. What more is there to say?" Rory tried to take the easy out, knowing it wouldn't work.

"He was more than that. 'I felt no fear of dangers because he was there' or something to that effect. Rory, come on. Spill."

"You wrote about him like you knew him, Ace," Logan admitted, finally looking truly curious. "Viv, cover your ears. We're talking about Rory's love life."

"How about instead of her covering her ears, Mr. Huntzberger, you take her upstairs and read her a story before you head to the office? I want to talk to Rory just us women." Marianna put on a convincing pout, and Rory marveled at how easily the housewife got her husband to comply, scooping up his toddler and toting her upstairs to leave them alone at the kitchen table. She stole a sausage link and munched on it. "Now, Rory, spill. Please. I know how you write, and this is not typical and not detached."

Rory hesitated. No matter how much she adored Marianna, she was not sure she felt comfortable discussing Tristan with anyone. She had not mentioned it to anyone, not to her mother or Paris or Lane. No one knew that she had encountered Tristan overseas, mostly because everyone would not understand why it was such a big deal to her. To them, Tristan was just some obnoxious classmate of hers from Chilton. They could not understand the strange tension between them or the way that she had challenged him to be more right before he was sent away. They certainly did not know about the letter she had penned to him once he was gone but never sent – both because she was a coward and because she did not have an address to send it to. But Marianna knew nothing about any of it. Perhaps she was the right one to tell. Besides, the encounter was nearly eighteen months ago now; it was safe to talk about it without reliving the strange intimacy of it.

"His name is Tristan DuGrey, and I went to high school with him. He was this arrogant playboy, sort of, but we were friends… and enemies. He asked me out once, and we kissed once, and he was sent away to military school suddenly and… I'm really not doing justice to this story," she said weakly.

"So… let me get this straight. He was the arrogant playboy you had unbelievable chemistry with during high school. It had to be unaddressed feelings for him that made you date my arrogant playboy, Logan," Marianna said. She was staring intently at her friend, chin propped up on both fists.

Rory was surprised by this statement; she had never thought of it that way. Surely that wasn't the case. "I don't… think so."

"Was Tristan blond, rich, desirable?"

"Well…" Rory tried for a few frantic seconds to think of some way to deny those adjectives, but it was impossible. "…yes."

"I understand now, even if you don't. Go on."

"Well, when I was interviewing overseas, I recognized him, and we got started talking and he told me that my pushing him to be better back in high school was the catalyst for who he is today. He thanked me, and I was touched and started to cry, and we ended up holding hands and sitting there in silence instead of doing an interview."

"Rory… this… is… fantastic! Amazing! Stupendous!" Marianna seemed beside herself, leaping up in a manner that was probably not safe for an extremely pregnant woman. Rory stood up too but did not understand why they were leaping for joy. She had had a strange, emotional, unlikely encounter with a very old friend, enemy, frenemy… guy. Why was this such incredible news?

"Why exactly? And let's not jump, Mari. There's a baby in there, not a Mexican jumping bean, and Logan would kill me if he knew I was letting you jostle his precious little it." She emphasized the word "it" in an attempt to sidetrack the other woman with the hot-button topic of finding out the gender of the child in advance. Logan wanted a surprise, and Mari wanted to know, and the two had been fighting about it for months, though now the point was moot since the child would be out so soon.

"Do not call the child it. I'm not going to be distracted. This guy is The One!"

"Oh hell, really? This is where you want to go with this? I should have eaten breakfast at home," she muttered, reaching down to grab her messenger bag. "I have to get to work for the day."

"You work from home now, and I'm not dissuaded. He was the one who got away, making you carry unresolved feelings forward. Then your only other truly serious relationship _of your life_ is a copycat relationship with a man full of similarities to the boy you lost. And now, you were reunited in a foreign country and found out he remembered you, treasured you even, all these years. This is the stuff dreams are made of. Logan and I just met at a charity function." Marianna sniffed derisively, though her eyes had that soft sparkle of happiness that showed she was perfectly happy with how they met. Rory felt a surge of anger and jealousy, anger at what was said and jealousy that she had no one to look that happy about.

"Oh shut up, Danielle Steele! This is not some romance novel, and you are being ridiculous. I'm leaving until your pregnancy hormones calm down," Rory grabbed her bag and marched out, cheeks flaming red. She brushed her bangs away from her eyes and stalked down the overly lengthy hallway to the ornate front door. She had heard her love life, or lack thereof in recent years, reduced to a lot of interesting explanations, but that was the most ridiculous by far. She had _loved_ Logan, not simply used him as a replacement for unresolved feelings. Tristan had not even been on her mind then, at least not frequently. He had not been a constant thought or presence; instead, he had been fleeting, more of a memory that flitted through and made her wonder where he was now. She never thought of him romantically, at least not after the first year or so, or at least that was what she was going to tell herself now since she had just yelled at a dear friend for saying that.

Her car was sitting there, the same battered Prius she had been driving since high school graduation, and in ten years, in spite of her grandparents' fervent pleas, she had never wanted another vehicle. The little hybrid had personality. She loaded up and pulled out of the driveway, frowning. Nothing Marianna had said had been deserving of snapping like she had, and she looked up at herself in the rearview mirror. "Pretty is as pretty does," she muttered, knowing that her mother would be displeased to know that her daughter had just treated a pregnant friend that way. She picked up her cell phone and dialed number one on speed dial anyway.

It was a matter of seconds before her mom's chipper voice greeted, "Mother Ship to Earthling, Mother Ship to Earthling."

"Earthling just behaved like an alien. I basically told Marianna to go to hell this morning," Rory switched lanes to avoid a motorcyclist.

"I knew this charmed Huntzberger friendship had to end eventually. Did you make out with Logan in the master suite?" Lorelai's tone was teasing but concerned; she did not think it was a good idea for Rory to be friends with her ex, even after all these years.

"No, so you write to Gossip Cop immediately to dispel that rumor. But Marianna read the excerpt of my book from the _New York Times_, and she decided that I was in love with some soldier… and I ended up spilling to her that the soldier I was writing about was… TristanDuGreyfromhighschool," she said his name quickly like ripping off a bandaid, but she still heard her mother gasp.

"You never mentioned that," Lorelai said slowly.

"It didn't seem important. But Marianna went crazy over it and started saying he was The One, and I went postal on her. Told her I didn't want to see her again until her hormones had calmed down."

"Oh, Rory, she must be so upset… but…" There was a pause. "She did kinda deserve it."

"What?"

"All that shit about Tristan – _Tristan_, just some jerk from high school – being The One just because you happened to run into him again. That was ridiculous. She had no right to unleash that brand of crazy on you."

Rory had meant to call to be comforted by her mom, but something about hearing her mother call Tristan, who had lost an arm serving his country, a jerk made her blood boil. How dare her mother call anyone who served their nation bravely overseas a jerk? "She had no way to know it was crazy. She's pregnant, so she's overly emotional and romantic, but hey, did you read what I wrote? It was pretty damn romantic, too!"

"Whoa, chick, calm down."

"No! Where do you come off justifying me being a jerk to my friend just because you hated Tristan back when I was in high school? I sure didn't hate him then, and I didn't hate him when we were holding hands overseas!"

"Rory, stop yelling."

"You're pushing your opinion on me again! You think I always think the exact same thing you do, and if

I don't, you're so convinced you're right that you try to push me to think what you think," she retorted angrily, knowing even as she did so that hurling this particular, painful kernel of truth at her mother was wrong. It was the sort of statement that could hang in the air between them for years, not repeated but not forgotten.

"Okay. Wow. I'm going to talk to you… some other time. Mother dearest has to go."

Rory felt instant regret. "Mom…" But the click of the phone informed her coldly that her mom had already hung up. She pushed her foot down harder on the accelerator in anger, punching the pedal down. The Prius hummed a little louder and sped up, and she tried not to think about the two people she had just upset terribly all because of one person who did not even have a role in her life.

"Life is like a box of chocolates," she muttered drearily as she pulled into her driveway.

* * *

**AN:** Let me know what you think! More readers and reviewers put a story higher on my priority list for updates.


	2. The Not So Chance Encounter

"Give me a call back, Ace. I've got an assignment for you, and I need you to start returning my calls, since I'm your boss and all."

The voicemail would have been more convincing if Rory had not been able to hear Marianna in the background, breathing in and out in her awkward pregnant woman heaves. She appreciated her friend caring enough about talking to her to go through all the effort of getting her husband to pretend he needed something, but she was not ready to make nice. It had only been 48 hours after all, hardly enough time for anyone to go crazy, and she was not ready to repair the minor rift with the dear Ms. Huntzberger until she had fixed the larger one with her mother.

She was driving again; that seemed to be much of her life these days, back and forth from assignments to her mom's to her dad's to her grandmother's to the Huntzbergers. Tonight was meant to be one of the fun trips, an evening in Star's Hollow with her mom and Luke at one of the town's fabulously funky festivals. This particular festival was a gourmet cheese tasting with a special performance by Miss Patty's dance students and of course, a guest appearance of the woman's famously strong punch. Normally, Rory thrived on these crazy town events, but tonight, she was gripping the wheel with hands a little white at the knuckle. Though she and Lorelai has fought before, she was not sure she had ever unloaded something so mean on her mother, especially not something so laced in genuine bitterness.

After all, her mother had always meant well when she offered her opinions on things, but in so many ways, she had wanted Rory to be a clone of her, something she genuinely wasn't. Rory loved classic novels, classic furniture, and in her own way, pretty classic men, too. She was not the funky creature her mother had tried to cultivate as her mini-me. She loved those things, too, but she loved them as a part of her mother and a part of a more classic overall life design. And now she had slammed Lorelai with the reality that she was, in fact, a pushy mom, in spite of also being a very cool one. As she pulled up to the first parking space she could find in Star's Hollow, she breathed in deeply and tried to tell herself that there would be no awkwardness, but it seemed unlikely.

The weather was of the briskest autumn kind, and she drew her coat around herself as she stepped out of the car. The smell of snow seemed to flutter in the air, that clean, sharp scent that only a certain kind of cold has. Rory was just glad she had worn warm clothes as she walked towards the center of town. There was laughter, the abrasive sound of Taylor's voice rising above the noises of festivity, and the undeniably bad music that was supposed to sound classy. God, she loved this place.

"Rory! You look so good. Get over here. I am weighed down and cannot get up. Get over here!" Lane's familiar voice called out. The once-slim Korean woman was seated on a chair with a toddler on her lap and three other children sprawled around her. The twins, now in their bratty mid-elementary school phase, were wearing matching The Who skullcaps and munching on cheese. The four-year-old was playing with some sort of handheld video game, and the baby of fifteen months was gnawing on a teething ring. Lane looked like some sort of fertile Asian goddess, overweight and yet somehow still glowing with warmth and womanhood that made her sexy. Rory bit back some strange jealousy in order to remind herself that she would go crazy if she had four boys to call her own. Though some might argue that Lane was always a tad crazy, Rory supposed.

"You are a fat cow, Lane," she teased but then her eyes softened and the smile at the corners of her mouth did too, "Look at you, though, really, you're the one who looks great. These kids become you." She leaned down and wrapped her arms around her best friend from above. For a second, her mind flitted to her other best friend, pregnant enough that she could not see her feet. How did she end up with these child-bearing women all around her? Next thing you knew her mother was going to be pregnant, too, at this rate. Sheesh.

"I look fat, and I know it, and I don't care. Now, I bought your new book, but I haven't – Eddie, don't throw that ring. Kwan, hand that back over here, please – had the time to read it yet. These boys – Steve, let's not go back for more cheese just yet, you're supposed to taste each kind, not eat four pounds of mild cheddar – are not very conducive to – shh, shh, shh, Eddie, Mommy's talking – getting recreational reading done."

Rory felt a little dizzy just watching Lane switch effortlessly from conversing to parenting and back again. "Take your time. It's a little drier than the rock books you usually devour."

"I want to read it – Zack, get over here and help with your sons – but things are crazy right now."

From a few feet away, Zack ambled over, but the shrill sound of Lane's shriek had pierced through the festivities and attracted the attention of another pair of festival-goers: Luke and Lorelai. Rory made conversation with Lane, pretending she didn't notice her dark-haired, attractive parent and stepparent approaching. When pretending stopped working, she tried flashing a completely innocent smile, but Lorelai's stony face greeted her without one. Luke just grunted uncomfortably.

"Hi Rory. Have you had any cheese yet?" Lorelai's voice was light but icy, and Rory debated for a second how to respond. She finally decided to just pretend she didn't notice the coldness.

"No. Lead the way, Captain!" She responded, tucking her arm through her mother's elbow and heading towards the cheese tent. She felt the tension through her mother's shoulders even as she did so.

It was going to be a long night.

X

"Logan…"

"Mr. Huntzberger would be appropriate right now."

"Oh please, you're not really that mad at me."

"Like hell I'm not. You ignore my phone calls for two weeks, miss an assignment I really needed a top reporter on, leave me in the lurch, and miss my wife's water breaking and her placement on bed rest, and you think I'm not mad?"

"It was a false alarm! She just lost control of her bladder for a second. The mucus plug is still firmly in place."

"Don't be disgusting, Rory."

They were seated in the study in the Huntzberger home, both dressed uncharacteristically formally and neither one smiling. Logan was in full suit and tie, just finished with a board meeting, and lines, faint but visible, appeared at the corners of his mouth, the beginnings of laugh wrinkles he would develop in coming years. For some reason, Rory was momentarily taken aback; were they getting old enough to develop such features on their faces? Her upcoming thirtieth birthday seemed like an even bigger deal all of a sudden. She swallowed sharply and looked down at her sensible black slacks and plain metallic flats.

"I'm sorry. It's true, though," she said gently. He massaged his temples.

"I really did have an assignment for you. You may be a family friend, Mari and I may love you, but you are an employee of the Huntzberger group, and you are paid generously to pick up your phone and take assignments, in addition to working on books. You really let me down this time." His expression completely lacked the teasing she was accustomed to, and she looked down in sudden embarrassment. It was rare for her to receive criticism for her performance as an employee – not since the old Mitchum days – so it hurt, but it hurt so much more because she knew Logan was right. She had gotten complacent in her role as the darling of the company, its first authoress and a proven journalist, as well as close family friend, and she had forgotten the most basic truth that ought to never be forgotten: they paid her salary for her to work.

"I'm so sorry, Logan," she replied, "I thought you were just calling me because Mari wanted to talk about our fight."

"No, I was calling because you are my employee."

"I'm sorry."

They looked at each other for a long, tense moment, and even though she was sorry, she refused to back down. Logan had more of the killer instinct than he thought, and she knew all too well that he ate alive the employees who deferred to him too much. So she looked at him squarely and waited. Finally, he sighed.

"Look, Ace," he said calmly, and she knew immediately that he was about to say something she might not like. His voice's eerie 'calm before the storm' quality combined all too well with the soothing, familiar nickname. "I need to suspend you. The board of trustees wanted you to take this assignment, and instead, I had to give it to a much less experienced and much more anonymous writer. They deserve to see you face repercussions for letting us down. So even though I do not like to do it, I am suspending you without pay for a month."

"A month?" Rory gasped. Even with her relative financial conservativism, she was going to feel the hurt of losing a full month's pay for a long time. Her mind immediately raced across the new budgeting that would have to be done and said a silent prayer of gratitude that she was not paying off student loans like so many people her age.

"Yes. A full month." He looked overwhelmed with guilt even as he said it, and Rory felt a warm, soft place on her heart ache like a bruise. Ex though he may be, Logan was still an amazing man who had loved her, and she was touched by how much it bothered him to treat her in this professional, critical way. She reached out to touch his arm.

"I made a mistake, Logan. You're doing the right thing."

He nodded. "I know, and I talked to Mari about it before I talked to you." She ignored the pang of jealousy that shot through her; no one ever talked to her about every aspect of their life in the intimate way partners had. "She is not up to the tension of revisiting your argument, but she wanted to do something for you because she correctly predicted why you were ignoring my calls. She feels guiltier than I do about this, and she rented you a house at the Outer Banks in North Carolina for a couple weeks."

He reached into his suit and pulled out a folded piece of paper, which she took numbly. Mari had rented her a house because _she _felt guilty? _I do not deserve friends like the ones I have_, she thought, unfolding the paper. A photograph of a little beach house, complete with sand and stilts, seemed to look back at her.

"I can't accept this gift. Especially not when I just let you down so tremendously."

"It's not from me. I'm furious with you, even though you're an old friend. But it's from Mari, and I will do anything for my wife right now to keep her from feeling unnecessary stress. You will take this gift, and you will go." There was a new ferocity in his tone now, a ferocity that could only be inspired by a perceived threat to his wife, not his business. Rory instantly recognized a fight she could not win; if he had to kidnap her and drag her down South himself, he would make sure she went where his wife wanted her to go. Love made people do crazy things.

"Yes, I will."

"Thank you. Lorelai Leigh Gilmore, I officially suspend you, beginning tomorrow and ending in thirty days," he said, smacking his fist against the wooden arm of his chair and smiling a relieved smile to have it over.

Rory could not quite manage a smile; she just nodded and rose slowly to leave, clutching the brochure about her rental home as if it were a death sentence.

X

Besides a text to her still-estranged mother that said "Does Paul Anka want to spend a month at the beach?", there was little that Rory said to anyone about the whole affair before she loaded up her Prius and started the drive to North Carolina. She had never spent much time below the Mason-Dixon line, and the idea of spending a whole month in the off-season Carolinas with locals and no job sounded horrible. She adjusted her sunglasses, cut up "Barbie Girl" by Aqua (the song she just couldn't make herself change), and tried to imagine this trip as a lovely vacation. But even her fertile imagination couldn't quite manage that. As she crossed the bridge onto the Outer Banks, she suppressed a chuckle at a sign that said "Beach Stuffies for Sale, Next Right." She was not sure what "stuffies" were, but she was pretty sure she was not going to need any, judging by the temperature meter on her dashboard that boasted a charming 49 degrees.

She wondered if this is what people in novels were talking about when they talked about hitting some sort of emotional low; she did not really feel sad, but she felt like she should. She was suspended without pay, exiled from her home state, and without even her sibling-dog, Paul Anka, to keep her company. It was a perfect beginning for a novel about self-growth and self-discovery and all that jazz. With that thought in mind, she realized that she didn't have much interest in those things. She really just wanted to go back to Huntzberger morning breakfast and too-frequent phone calls with her mother, and it would be at least a month before she returned to those routines, maybe longer.

If that had not been enough, she was having the weirdest feeling that she didn't truly have a life; what woman about to meet her thirties could pack up and leave for a month without any obligations or ties to stop her from doing so? She could not think of any of her friends who would be able to do such a thing. They had jobs beyond their jobs, but she didn't. She had no significant other, no children, no pet, and no volunteer work she had dedicated her heart and time to.

The idea that she was perhaps a pathetic person was too upsetting for her to dwell on, so she cut up the music and drove on until she turned onto Old Beach Road and found the 911 address she was looking for. The driveway was gravel and sand, hardly practical, and the little house somehow looked smaller than it had in the photograph. Some of the paint was peeling, and one shutter hung crooked, but it was beautiful. She got out of her car, just her purse in hand, and walked towards the stairs. But the stilts caught her eye, and she walked over to them. The stilts were carved with memoirs, some up so high that she could imagine tall men standing on tiptoes just to reach. _Great week here! Love you guys. Summer 2009…. Chris&Molly. 6/12/04… Baby's first beach trip! Momma… _Each little carving boasted some story, however small, and she felt her throat constrict for reasons she couldn't understand. It had all probably started so innocently, just a person or two carving their names into the wood, but once it had caught on, it seemed to spiral out of control until even the most mild-mannered, non-graffitist would have joined in the tradition upon seeing these works of art. Rory tried to imagine what she could put on the stilts after a month in this house; would anything sweet and sentimental happen, or would she simply have the words "Rory was here" to carve in?

Even after unloading her bags into the house, she felt no more cheerful. The inside was clean and bright, and the view of the rolling ocean waves and soft sands was amazing, even in the chilly autumn weather. Yet she was frowning and curling her feet up on the couch and thinking, _What do I do now? _And truly she had no idea. She cut on the TV. _You've Got Mail_ was on a network channel, halfway through, and she managed a smile. This movie had always made her happy; Meg Ryan's character was sincere, genuine, relatable, and she ultimately found love, even during life's worst knocks. Plus it talked about books a great deal. What was not to love? Rory let herself get lost in the familiar story of AIM and bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils. When Tom Hanks emotionally delivered the line "Hey, how about... oh, how about some coffee or, you know, drinks or dinner or a movie... for as long as we both shall live?", she started to cry softly, touched as always by the well-acted modern love confession, just in time to hear a knock on the door.

It was common for house owners to come by and meet their renters, particularly renters who were settling in for a whole month. She put her feet down on the carpet, wiggling her toes and stretched. Then she glanced over at the mirror hanging on the wall and wiped her cheeks and eyes quickly. Her eyes were a little red rimmed, but her hair was straight and she didn't look totally pathetic. She strolled to the front door and pulled it open, forgetting as always to peep through the peephole.

And just like that, she felt the blood seem to rush out of her head, and she felt dizzy. There stood Tristan DuGrey. He was wearing a grey sweater, khakis, and a shocked expression. Her eyes darted to the pinned up sleeve where an arm had once been, and then back to his face, to the surprise emerging from and reflected in his eyes.

"Rory, what are you doing here?"

"Tristan?"

Their words tumbled out at the same time, and they both laughed awkwardly. Why was he here? She shuffled her bare feet on the door mat, preparing to think, but the answer came to her instantly. Mari. Of course, Mari had done this on purpose. Perhaps this was a property owned by the DuGreys, perhaps she had somehow arranged for him to simply be here, but whatever this was, it was not a coincidence. It was the diabolical plan of a pregnant society wife who had obviously watched _Fiddler on the Roof_ and _Millionaire Matchmaker _too many times. Rory lifted a hand to her forehead, unable to believe the level of meddling she was now forced to deal with. It gave her a good excuse to avoid thinking about the last time they had met, though.

"I can't believe this," she muttered, and he looked at her blankly, still stonewalled by his surprise. She cleared her throat and tried to explain, the words rambling out of their own accord, "I wrote a book, with collections from my interviews from overseas, and it got published, and my best friend, Marianna Huntzberger, of _the_ Huntzbergers, read it, and there was a part about you, and she got this crazy idea that we were like characters from some made-for-TV movie who were going to end up together, and she rented me this beach house for the month, and I came down here, but it was obviously a matchmaking attempt on her part, and I am so sorry."

He stared at her still, for a good thirty seconds, and then he started to laugh, a strangely booming laugh, that confused Rory immensely. "Does she read a lot of Nicholas Sparks?" He managed, still chuckling.

"She… I… she… she might…" Rory stammered out, confused by the laughter. Tristan continued to laugh, putting up on broad hand on the side of the doorway to support himself. Rory watched him draw in some deep breaths to stop the laughing and finally it was his turn to explain.

"He bases a lot of his books in this part of North Carolina, and we sometimes get people coming down here thinking it is this amazing romantic place because of that. I just never thought that anyone would be trying to rope me into one of his silly plots," Tristan grinned, a crooked smirk-like grin that made Rory's breath catch for a just a second before she reminded herself that there was no romance here and that this was not a fairy tale.

"You're not… I mean, at least, I'm not trying to rope you into one…" Rory did not understand how Mari could have done this to her, but she was definitely going to kill her for it, kill her and then marry her husband and gloatingly pretend that Logan had always loved her best anyway. That would show the meddling bitch who should be messed with and who shouldn't be.

"Well then, I guess I'll just say what I came to say…" He said, eyes twinkling. "Hi, I'm Tristan DuGrey, and I'm one of the owners of this property. I manage all of the DuGrey properties here, and if you have any problems, you can call me any time, and I would be happy to help you."

Now she laughed. "I'm Lorelai Gilmore, but please, call me Rory. I'll be here for a month," she extended her hand theatrically, and he accepted it. The sight of him shaking her hand with the only one he had rattled her a little, and she felt ashamed of herself. What kind of person was she that she was finding it hard not to stare?

"It's nice to meet you, Rory. What brings you to the Outer Banks?" Still the twinkle in those eyes.

"A month's vacation, paid for by a gracious friend."

"How wonderful. Well, I hope that if you will be here for a whole month, in the off-season, you have plans already made. Most of the tourist places are not open this time of year," he replied, still acting the role of welcoming, professional manager. She frowned at his words, though. It sounded like she was indeed going to have a very hard time occupying herself this month. He must have noticed the hesitation on her face because he dropped the professional charade. "No? Hey, Rory, that's okay. I'm stuck down here anyway, managing the properties, and I'd be happy to have you spend some time with me. It can get kinda lonely in the off-season."

He did not seem awkward at all, still surprised that she was here, but not awkward. She wondered if he did not remember the strange and intimate way they had spoken so many months ago in the Middle East; perhaps he had been on painkillers and could not remember, or worse, perhaps she had simply blown the whole thing out of proportion in her mind. That idea was unpalatable.

"Won't it be awkward?" She finally asked, voice a little weak. Suddenly, the twinkle left his eyes, and they hardened to steely blue.

"No. We're old friends, basically, and there is nothing between us that could be awkward," he replied. His voice had changed just like his eyes, from congenial to clipped and final. She looked straight at him and again wondered what he was thinking about that last meeting. Whatever he was thinking, it was clear he did not want to talk about it with her.

She managed a smile. "If there's no awkwardness, then I'm in. We'll have to get together some."

He nodded but uncomfortable silence had already settled in on them. The chilly breeze kicked up and his empty sleeve flapped against his body a little; she shuddered from both the physical cold and the sudden chill between them. She waited him out though, waiting for the rigidity in his body to soften and the twinkle to return. Finally, slowly, it did.

"How about tonight? I'm getting together with some friends, and you would be welcome. After all, if we're going to be stuck in a romance novel together, we might as well play along," he even chuckled.

"That sounds nice. I'd be happy to come along."

"I'll come pick you up at six. See you then, Rory."

When she shut the door behind him, she leaned against it and closed her eyes. Her heart was pounding in her chest like a teenager who had just been asked to homecoming, but she sensed that this was not the same sort of awkward invitation at all. There was too much unspoken, too much being thought. It had none of the ease of old friends, and she suddenly very much wished she had declined his offer. Likely, he had only even asked her out of pity that she was trapped in the offseason Outer Banks with no plans.

Damn Mari. Damn her to hell. Rory did not need her life to get this complicated. She did not need to be leaned against a door, heart pounding, thinking about Tristan DuGrey. She was nearly thirty, damn it; it was time to leave behind sweaty palms and the burning question of "Could this be my fairy tale?" that every woman secretly has.

"I am going to kill everyone." She said out loud, shaking her head. "At least then my patheticosity could be peaceful."

* * *

**AN:** And you thought this story was abandoned. But no, really, I am sorry for the rather lengthy delay in writing the second chapter. I stay busy, and I do not always stay inspired. With that said, however, I already know EXACTLY what I want do with the next chapter of this one, so it should be up much, much, much faster than this one. Please let me know what you're thinking, what you do like, what you don't like. I value your feedback!


	3. Unexpected Double D's

When he picked her up, she had rolled her eyes at first. Who was he to show up at her door in a soft blue pullover and faded jeans, sand clinging to his boots, like some beautiful man unaware of his own family fortune? She had been so sure they were going to meet with ritzy friends somehow connected to the DuGrey fortune. But then he had driven her down to the beach, and she had taken in the scene in front of her. A bonfire roared up into the dusky sky, sparks floating up and out. There were men and women scattered around the fire, some holding skewers into it, others just talking and laughing, some others fiddling their hands in front of them in a way she didn't recognize; some had gathered on a makeshift dance floor, with a boombox sitting on an overturned laundry basket. One couple caught her eye. The woman was laughing, head tilted back with the firelight dancing on it, and she was holding onto her partner with one hand and holding a beer bottle with the other, and the man was leaned toward her. Then he took the bottle from her hand and took a drink. A strange sensation stirred low in Rory's stomach at the easy intimacy before her. When was the last time she had had that?

She looked over at the man beside her, driving his truck out onto the beach, easily maneuvering his wheels through the familiar packed ruts of the other vehicles with his one arm. The boy she had known in high school would not have known how to drive anything but a luxury sports car on well-paved roads in nice neighborhoods.

"You're awfully quiet," Tristan observed as he put the truck into park.

"I'm just startled. Wasn't what I was… expecting," Rory cracked a smile that she suspected looked a little apologetic. His eyes twinkled understandingly.

"You thought we were going to a more DuGrey-worthy soiree?"

"Yeah," she chuckled, "But this looks…" She paused and breathed out the next word with absolutely sincerity, "wonderful."

"Good. It ought to be a good time."

"Are these your friends?"

"Some. Some are friends of friends. Mostly we're all just locals celebrating the exodus of the tourists after a real good busy season. It's a chance to breathe."

"Tourists that bad?"

"Not at all, but the busy rush of having almost all of your work happen in one fairly short season is stressful."

"Alright. Now I'm nervous. I feel like I'm approaching an exclusive club. What if they hate me?" She was half-joking, and her smile wavered accordingly. They were walking now, feet shifting in the sand. The space between their bodies was close enough that the natural reaction would have been to put arms around each other, but they were not truly on a date, so Rory did not feel comfortable doing so, and Tristan had no arm on the side where she was walking. It was odd how one second his missing limb was truly gone, not even noticeable, and the next its absence seemed way more physically present than its presence would have.

"They'll hate you if you talk DuGrey and Gilmore and Huntzberger-style. If you talk like the person you actually are, a working person with a real job and a real house, then you'll be fine," he replied.

When they got just a touch closer, people started to drop what they were doing and come over. First, it was a tall man with a dark goatee and wind-burned face, accompanied by his lovely wife, and then it was a pair of young beautiful blondes who snuggled on either side of Tristan. One tucked a beer into his hand as she greeted him, and the other tucked herself under the arm and opened the beer. Both of them looked frivolous and fun and made Rory all too aware of the fact that her twenties would be behind her in just a short time. Rory frowned through her small talk with Sarah, the goateed man's wife, until Tristan dragged the blondes to her and introduced them.

"Rory, this is Mary Malone and her sister, Hannah. They're waitresses too lazy to go to college and too young to order a drink, and they're both in love with me because they're hoping my family fortune will protect them from ever having to have a life plan," he said, waggling his eyebrows. The blonde on the right smacked him.

"Sometimes there is such a thing as being too honest, Trist," Mary Malone said with a surprisingly warm smile turned to Rory. Rory immediately felt the tension through her shoulder-blades ease. "We're sisters, and we're bums, but we're not actually in love with him. He's too serious for our taste. Now, we hear that you are Rory, an old flame of his from high school, and that we are to be nice to you or else."

Tristan colored, even in the relative darkness of the beach, at the term old flame, and Rory raised an eyebrow. Perhaps she had not been the only one whose heart had fluttered foolishly for weeks after their one and only kiss. "Please do be nice to me, which, if possible, might include letting me put my arms around my old flame so I'm not consumed with jealousy when you do," she hoped her comment sounded as good-natured and joking as she intended, and it must have because Hannah and Mary Malone both made joking hisses and meows as if on the verge of cat fight and then pushed Tristan towards her. He wrapped his arm around her and gave her a squeeze.

"You can't really find two sweeter kids," Tristan said to Rory once the gorgeous sisters had floated away to talk to other people. The easy honesty with which he said this instantly confirmed what his introduction had suggested; he saw these girls as kids, not as youthful babes to lust over. She smiled, and he kept his arm around her. As if to prove his point, Hannah floated over and slipped a beer into Rory's hand and then disappeared again without a word.

"I retract my earlier frown. They're lovely," Rory replied, popping the top on her beer and taking a sip. It was cold and cool, and it had the familiar taste of lowered inhibitions and fun nights. Tristan lifted his arm from around her, and she felt a moment of sadness until she realized he was just taking a drink. Then his arm returned to resting comfortably around her, and she leaned into the solid, comforting warmth of his chest. For a moment, in the flickering firelight, surrounded by laughing, talking people, she did not care that she had been set up by a meddling friend, she did not care that he had just asked her here to be nice, and she did not care that enjoying that solid masculine arm was just a cheap, temporary thrill; she just relaxed against him and stopped thinking.

They ended up walking over and sitting by the bonfire for a while. Rory got to see that the people fiddling with their hands had, in fact, been picking crabs, and there was a hilarious half an hour that followed where the locals tried to teach her how to do the same. The skill was so intrinsic to them that they got frustrated trying to explain it, and then they got even more frustrated when she told them that crab meat tasted boring and that she wanted butter. All of the frustration was paired with joking about the silly Yankee Tristan had brought and pats on the shoulder when she finally picked one of the crabs all by herself. Throughout the easy conversation, she came to realize how well-liked Tristan was among these people. He might be a DuGrey in her world, but here, he was just a soldier home from war managing some real estate to make a living. The frivolous party boy of her youth did not seem to exist here, but neither did the serious, sad soldier she had encountered overseas. She felt a little dizzy from the contrasts in her mind, but she enjoyed hearing the stories about Tristan one night at some bar with some buddy shooting pool and that one time that he fell off of the boat on a fishing trip and nearly got hooked. He had a niche here, for sure.

Then, with the crab meat in her stomach accompanied by three beers, Rory let Tristan drag her out on the dance floor. The easy country music was fun to dance to, and Rory recycled through three or four partners, including one old enough to be her father. The whole time she found herself glancing over to watch Tristan. He danced as if he had no handicap, and none of the women seemed to mind, judging from the way they twirled and conversed and sang along with the music in his grasp. She remembered his off-hand comment that it could get lonely here in the off-season for him, and as she watched him, happy and relaxed, she knew he had just been throwing her a bone to help keep her from being stuck by herself. Gratitude was a fuzzy feeling across her skin. The fuzzy feeling transferred to her stomach when she finally saw him extend a hand to her again, and she gladly reached over and joined him.

It was as if she had been holding two magnets apart with all of her strength and finally got the relief of letting them fall together. She tucked herself against him comfortably.

"So are you having an okay time?" He asked, swaying to the music with her easily. She opened her mouth to reply when suddenly her phone rang. With a frown and the distinct thought that the universe hated her, she fished out her phone and opened it. It was her mother.

"Hey Rory! How's the Outer Banks? Wait, what is that awful music? Honey, are you being held hostage by rednecks?" Lorelai's voice was a little tight, but it was obvious that she was trying very hard to sound like there was nothing wrong with their relationship. It was the first time Rory had ever heard their banter sound so strained, and she immediately wished that her mother would just acknowledge that she was still upset with her instead of pretending otherwise.

"Who is it?" Tristan mouthed, and Rory mouthed back, "My mother," and he mouthed something back that she could have sworn was "You should fuck with her." Now there was the party boy she had known in high school.

"No, no, not being held hostage. I'm out on a date with just the sweetest man. His name is Bubba, and he's only missing three or four teeth," Rory replied, trying her hardest not to laugh. Tristan opened his mouth wide, baring all of his very white, very present teeth.

"Are you really out with someone, Rory? Or have you succumbed to the honky-tonk side?" Lorelai sounded genuinely confused.

"I'm really out with someone. In fact, we're on the dance floor right now, and he's looking impatient. I really hope those shirts aren't called wifebeaters for a reason…" At this comment, Tristan actually laughed out loud, the sound coming out in an awkward through-the-nose snort as he tried to stifle it.

"Rory Gilmore, if you don't explain to me what you are talking about, I'm driving down there and finding you!"

"Sorry, Mom. The Outer Banks are lovely, but I really am on a date, and I will tell you all about it tomorrow, but right now, I had better go with him and enjoy some dances."

"Okay… This all seems very fishy to me… how could you have even met someone? You've been down there less than 24 hours."

"I'm very charming. I'll talk to you tomorrow. I love you."

"I love you too."

She hung up and looked at Tristan, who just pulled her back against him. She wondered how many beers he had had that he felt so comfortable with her, or if it was just because she was a face from his past in a most comfortable location of his present. "You're on a date?" He teased gently, face tilted down towards hers.

"I'm an old flame?"

His eyes sparkled with mischievous intent as he replied, "You would have been if it hadn't been for that old fuddy-duddy Dean."

She felt her eyes widen; so Tristan _had _liked her. The old fuddy-duddy as he had just been called had been right. "Did you really just say fuddy-duddy?"

"I'm as surprised as you," he echoed, "Now shut up. You're trying to trick me into confessing some long hidden secret of love when all I want to do is dance."

"Fine," she feigned a pout, but then laid her head on his shoulder and swayed to the soft ballad that played. He mumbled along with the words, not to her but just in gentle appreciation of the moment, and she felt light and happy.

Maybe she would hunt Mari down and kill her after the month had ended, rather than cutting it short.

X

By the time they loaded up in his truck and headed back to her beach house, Rory was exhausted. The alcohol and dancing and conversation into the wee hours of the morning were not part of her usual routine anymore, and she could barely keep her eyes open as Tristan navigated back to the house. They were quiet, peaceful, and there was the unspoken air that they were not going to speak about anything, not tonight. Something unspoken about not speaking seemed remarkably vague and mysterious, which in this circumstance suited Rory just fine. She was not ready to make this fun, somehow romantic evening concrete; she was not ready to make it just "a casual outing between friends" or a "welcome from an old friend" or whatever it actually was. Right now, it was lurking the strangely magical realm of the unknown, and she liked it that way.

He walked her to the door, their hips casually bumping against one another as they walked up the steps. When they reached the top, she put her key into the doorknob and unlocked it but did not immediately push it open. "Thank you for taking me out tonight. I had a good time," she said quietly, pushing a bit of her bobbed hair away from her face. He smiled immediately.

"I did too," he put a hand on her arm, and the light touch made her shiver. It seemed somehow so different after dancing with him for hours in the glow of the bonfire. "I'm not so upset to have some company for a while, even if your friend did set it up with nefarious purposes."

"It'll be nice to have a friend here in the Outer Banks," Rory agreed. Her statement was immediately countered with a chuckle, and Tristan reached toward her, tucked her against him and looked right down into her eyes.

"Tonight was a date, Mary. Maybe next time won't be, and I sure didn't intend for tonight to actually be one, but it was a date," his voice was calm, his smile twitching at the corners just a little, but his eyes were serious. "That was our first date, and it was pretty damn good."

Rory felt herself blush bright red and was grateful for the darkness. "It was pretty good."

"Pretty damn good," Tristan repeated.

"Yeah, but we're not going to go for a date next time we see each other. We're not going to get involved. Mari cannot be rewarded for her meddling, and besides," Rory hated herself for the lie she was about to tell, "I'm not interested in getting involved with anyone right now. I'm all about my career."

"I didn't ask you for anything. I'm just telling you what tonight was, so you don't do that girl thing and go to bed tonight and wonder over it for hours," The trace of that old arrogant playboy was so evident in this statement and the sparkle in his eyes that Rory had to laugh.

"Gee, thanks."

"Any time. Now go get some sleep." He turned their easy embrace into a somewhat awkward hug, they both said good night, and he headed down the steps and she headed inside. It wasn't until she closed the door behind her that she realized the ridiculousness of the whole situation. An unexpected first date at nearly thirty with one of her high school crushes, at least somewhat arranged by the wife of her college boyfriend (who had once proposed to her), was hardly a normal development in adult life. Her head was spinning from the improbability of it all, and by the time she crawled into bed, she was just grateful not to have to think about it anymore.

X

Getting dressed was a much more arduous chore the morning after a date than Rory had remembered. Partly that was upsetting because it meant it had been far too long since she had been on a date, and partly it was upsetting because she felt way too lazy to put forth effort into looking nice in the mornings. She had woken up, taken a shower, run some mousse through her damp hair, and then slapped on a bathrobe and called her mother. Casually leaving out the name of the man she had gone out with the evening before, she had painted a picture of a pleasant but casual and non-sexual evening and hung up feeling a little guilty. It was not like her to keep things, any things, from her mother, but things seemed to be a-changing lately, especially with Lorelai being so smitten and happy in her first successful marriage.

Finally, Rory decided on what to wear. It needed to be very casual, as if she was not anticipating seeing Tristan, but it also needed to look nice so that if she did see him he did not think that it was just the consumption of alcohol the night before that had made her seem appealing. She decided on a lightweight blue Henley and dark wash jeans with a pair of open-toed flats that were a touch impractical for the cool weather but perfect for the beach. Now that she was dressed, it was time to explore the area, take her Prius out for a spin, and see what sort of little shops were around where she could blow some money she couldn't quite afford to blow. That was what one did on vacation, after all. Putting her purse, a hulking tote-style bag, on her arm, she checked the time. 11:00 a.m. She headed to the door and pulled it open only to see something unexpected sitting on the doormat.

It was a dog, a big, floppy-eared hound dog with skinny sides and matted brown and white fur. It was sitting there on the doormat, looking straight up at her. Then its tail started thumping wildly against the porch. She looked around in confusion. No one seemed to be anywhere nearby.

"Hello? Anyone missing their dog? He ran this way. He's right here… or she… It might be a she!" Rory hollered out, looking around. The dog just smiled up at her, big mouth wide as it panted happily and wagged its tail against the floor. "Anyone?"

She stood awkwardly looking around until it finally became clear that the dog did not belong to anyone and that it was not going to go away. She was pretty sure she had heard hundreds of times never to feed a stray unless you intended to keep it, but this stray looked hungry, and she was a sucker. "Well, let's see… I haven't really gone grocery shopping, so unless you want a cereal bar…" She spoke to the dog as if it could understand every word. "How about this? I'm headed out to do a little bopping around, and I'll bring back something in case you're still here when I get back. Deal?"

Since there was still no response, she started down the steps, glancing back awkwardly with each step to see if the dog was still there. Better than just being still there, the dog was following her down the steps with dogged (pun intended) determination. Rory heard herself chuckling at her own thoughts. When she reached the Prius and opened the door, the hound happily jumped in and settled itself into the passenger seat. During its ungainly leap, Rory noticed its gender; it was a he, not an it. "No, no, no no… you're not allowed in the car!" She said, but he paid no attention to her admonition, except to give her a doe-eyed sideways look that seemed to ask why she too wasn't getting in the car. As she looked at his sandy paws and dirty, smelly body rubbing against her car seat, she groaned. He was going to have to go. She crawled in and shut her door, nearly gagging from the proximity to his nauseating smell.

Digging out her GPS, she searched on it for the local animal shelter. Taking a stray into the shelter was really the only feasible and kind option, after all. Once she had the address punched in, she started up the car and down the road. As she drove, she tried to ignore the stench and pressed forward towards the destination. "It is nothing personal, you have to understand, and I am very glad you seem to like me, but I know nothing about taking care of a dog, so it is better that I put you in capable hands and let you find a good, stable home," she told the drooling canine as she drove. When the GPS finally told her to turn, she was headed down a gravely back road, pulling up to a clean but clearly old building. The sounds of barking filled the air, some of it plaintive, some excited, and her companion started up a loud, rude baying in response. She hopped out of the door quickly, shutting it before he could follow her out and potentially run off.

Following a crooked sign that said "Office This Way," Rory pushed a creaky screen door to enter a small office. Cramped in the small space was a white board with seemingly unintelligible writing on it, a desk with piles of paperwork, and one very petite, very frazzled-looking woman about the same age as Rory.

"Hi. Can I help you?" The woman looked up from her paperwork with a tired expression. Just then, an officer stuck his head into the office from another door, presumably the one that led to the dog runs, and shouted in, "Make that sixteen, Shan."

"Fuck." The woman, probably named Shannon, said. "Sixteen." She scribbled something on the white board and looked back up. "Sorry. What'd you need again?"

Rory couldn't resist the pull of curiosity, no matter how many cats it had killed. "Sixteen what?"

"Sixteen dogs we've gotten from a hoarding situation today alone. It'll be a legal nightmare, and the psychological problems of the animals coming out of those situations are enough to keep you up at night."

"Hoarding situation?"

"You seen the TV shows on A&E and shit?" Rory nodded to answer the question. "Like that but with animals. Now what do you need?"

The woman was a little brusque, but it was easy to understand why. Rory thought of the droopy-eared, doe-eyed hound dog in her Prius and suddenly knew she could not burden this woman with him. She, and by extension, this shelter obviously had a lot on the plate right now. Instead of saying something canned about finding a stray she couldn't keep, she tried another angle.

"I've found a dog, and I don't know much of anything about him except he's friendly. Thought you guys here might know how I could go about starting to take care of him," Rory said quietly. Shannon's facial expression instantly softened, changing so dramatically that it made Rory smile too.

"First time dog owner?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Why don't I hand you a slip leash and you bring the lucky boy on in here? I'll look him over and let you know how to get started taking care of him. I'm Shannon, by the way," she extended her hand, and Rory took it and shook it.

Starting out her time in the Outer Banks had certainly been eventful. First, it had been an unexpected date, and then an unexpected dog… what was next? She knew that things tended to go in threes, but she could not for the life of her think of what other D thing could unexpectedly happen next.

She grabbed the leash and headed out to the car to get her new hound dog.

* * *

**AN: **It's here! Enjoy it, and let me know what you think. Remember that reviews help me to know what is working and what isn't. Thanks.


	4. The Third D

The third D did arrive, three days later and with more shock and awe than either of the others. By the time the third D arrived, the second D had become a T: Tolstoy, to be more specific. If the name did not quite suit the goofy-looking hound, he certainly did not seem to mind. He had been fed, bathed, vaccinated, neutered, and taken shopping, and now, he was looking downright at home in cozy beach house. Tristan had laughed at her when she had called him to ask if she could have a dog and immediately driven over to meet the precocious goofball. When she had told him the dog's name, he had laughed right over her explanation of why it was a fitting name (which was obviously because the dog had moved from hardship, War, to happy companionship, Peace).

It was on a brisk morning when she had put Tolstoy's smart-looking green leash on his leather collar that she walked out her front door (amazing how quickly she came to think of it as her front door) and saw the third D. The third D was named Dean Forester, and he was parking a dilapidated old car in her driveway. Rory was so shocked, she halted in her tracks mid-step, and tumbled all the way down the steps. Luckily she dropped the leash, and Tolstoy just trotted down at his own pace to stop beside his heap of owner.

She looked up again. Yes, it was definitely Dean. He was every bit as tall and tan and handsome as she remembered him. Only now he was sporting a goatee, a few lines from more than ten years of hard work outdoors, and a smile as big as any she had ever seen. He waved at her with one hand, an off-hand, easy wave as if his presence in her driveway was the most natural and expected thing in the world. She knew it was a ruse, though, because he did not rush over to help her up from her fallen heap but allowed her the moment to slowly, cautiously stand up, check for broken bones, and gather her thoughts. She had not seen Dean since she had broken up his marriage and briefly dated him, and she had not thought about him much more recently than that either. Two trials, two failed experiments, had been enough to displace Dean from her Hope List for romance. Yet here he was. He had obviously sought her out.

"Dean? What are you doing here?" She sputtered the words out.

He approached her now, as she stood there, dumbfounded while Tolstoy's wagging tail smacked against her leg repeatedly. "I came to tell you something I should have told you years ago," Dean sounded completely calm and collected, but as she glanced down at his hands, free from the weight from a wedding band, they were shaking. As Dean got closer still, Tolstoy started baying. That had been the biggest adjustment for Rory about life with a hound dog; having come from fairly urban Northern spaces, she had not often experienced that unique sound that only a hound can make. At first, it had seemed horribly grating, but already, she was starting to develop some affection for it.

"Hush, Tolstoy," she murmured, reaching down to pat the dog's head. The dog looked up at her lovingly and stopped his barking. Dean looked grateful to have the barking stop.

"Rory Gilmore, from the second I saw you reading on that bench when we were kids, I was enchanted by you. I know we've had our chances, and we've failed, but I know there's a reason I still think of you when I think of who I want my 'happily ever after' with. I just turned thirty, and I've realized it is time to stop just thinking of that from afar. I called Lorelai and asked for your number, and she did me one better and gave me your current address. So I took saved up vacation time off of work, got in the car, and showed up here like some kind of crazy person to ask you…. Will you go to dinner with me tonight? I want one more chance." His speech had none of the polish Rory had always imagined in an I love you speech; he stuttered and stumbled over his words, and he ran those shaking hands through his hair, leaving behind ruts as evidence of his nervousness. She tried to figure out what she should say, what she could say.

She had not been thinking any of the same things, had not even been thinking about Dean at all, but somehow, she found herself moved to tears. Was it the beauty of having a movie moment play out in her own life? Was it the hope that Dean truly was her Great Love Story and that one day she could tell her children that she married the man who was her first kiss? Or was it something else entirely, perhaps the buzz of discomfort under her skin at being on the receiving end of such raw emotion she did not think she shared? She opened her mouth more than once to say something and then pulled it shut again.

He shifted where he stood. "That was a lot. Try to just hear the question: Will you go to dinner with me tonight?" He looked at her and managed a crooked smile. She patted Tolstoy's head and tried to buy a few precious seconds with a smile. Ignoring her dizziness, she finally spoke,

"Dinner." It was one word, and it was not spoken with the rising inflection needed for a question yet he answered it as one.

"Yes."

"Tonight?" This time she succeeded in making it sound like a question.

"Yes."

"Okay." She wondered if it was wise to agree to dinner with someone who was obviously seeking something so much more, but again, she felt the shock numbing her ability to think this through solidly. Whether her answer was wise or not, Dean jumped on it readily. A grin appeared on his face, a twitchy, quick-natured expression that flitted in place all at once. She tried to manage one equally happy but just felt shaky.

"I'll pick you up at six, okay?" He responded, all caution gone. "Wear something nice. I make a little more money now than I did when I was bagging groceries, so we'll go to a real restaurant." His smile quirked, and her heart skipped a funny little beat at the memory of high school dating. It had been such a sweet, simple time between them, without game or guile. She suspected any boy could have been the other half of her relationship with Dean, or at least any decent, fairly inexperienced guy. It had been her who had made that relationship one so special to her; she had long since recognized that one of the reasons she had returned to Dean after his marriage was not for love of Dean himself but for the love of the quiet, book-loving, smart, funny, naïve girl she had been when she had met and dated Dean. And reclaiming that girl was not an option; once naïveté is lost, it seems destined to be lost for good.

"Okay." She responded, a beat too late, not that he noticed. Her thoughts swirled. Yet even if she was not that girl any longer, neither was Dean that same boy. They were adults, changed, shaped by new experiences and world views. Dean and Rory might be as compatible as adults as they had once been as children. Yes, dinner was a worthwhile test run, an experiment if you will.

They parted ways awkwardly, without any small talk and without anything to break any sort of touch barrier, not even a handshake. Leash wrapped once around her hand and eyes glazed as she lived in her internal workings, she led Tolstoy, the obedient hound, on a meandering walk along the beach. Sand grazed her toes, and she thought of Tristan in an instant, remembering dancing with him in the cool evening by the firelight, in that magical place of neither friendship nor romance. What would Tristan say if she told him about Dean's dramatic monologue that sent him careening back into her life? On one level, she supposed, she and Tristan were friends, but four days of spending some time together probably did not count as enough to forge true friendship. So she was not obligated to tell him about Dean. But at the same time, she knew instinctively that she should.

"Tolstoy, why do people keep showing up on my rented doorstep? Trist, you, Dean… I can't handle this," she murmured, but the dog offered no great insight. If she wanted insight, it seemed she was going to have to make some phone calls. She waited until she had finished walking the dog and then even waited until he was asleep on the couch, snoring those awkward snorting snores that he was prone to. Then she curled up on the bed in the bedroom and clutched her cell phone in a death grip. The numbers on the keypad, and the corresponding people they would reach if she speed dialed them, seemed to swirl in front of her eyes. So much to tell any of the people she could easily reach. Lane would want all the details and would encourage her to be wild and crazy, probably to sleep with both of them even – "You're single and free! Do it!" she could just imagine her best friend saying. Mari would be outraged that an old boyfriend was throwing a wrench in her master plan – "How is the jerk who cheated on his wife any comparison to the war hero who fought for you overseas?"

And her mother, what would her mother say to all of this? It was hard to predict, even though this was such a Lorelai situation. After all, Lorelai had juggled men her whole life, until this marriage to Luke. Rory could not think of any way to explain her dilemma to her mother, though. "Hey Mom. I feel a little squishy about that boy from high school you thought was an arrogant dickwad, but you just sent that other boy from high school that you loved obsessively careening back into my life with promises of love, and now I don't know what to do" really did not seem like an appropriate conversation to have to have. She was probably going to have to face this one on her own.

X

She dropped her bottle of nail polish three times while she was getting ready, and on the third, it shattered, sending red-orange smeared shards all over the bathroom floor. She immediately rocked her bare feet up onto her toes and cursed with a particularly foul bit of profanity. Looking around for something to stand on, she cursed herself for throwing the bathroom rug in the washer after bathing Tolstoy; sure, it had been stained, but it had been valiantly covering the floor and would have protected either the bottle from breaking or her feet from standing in it had it still been there. She stood there, frozen, in her bra and underwear, with seven painted, still wet fingernails, and wondered what to do. Finally, when her toes started to ache, she decided to leap haphazardly over the pile of polish and glass through the doorway. In the process, she severely smudged the polish on two of the painted nails and still managed to get a tiny piece of glass lodged in her heel.

"Eff," she muttered, opting to skip out on the actual cuss word this time. Tolstoy, who was lying out in the hallway, looked at her curiously for a moment and then dropped his head again, obviously feeling that he had better things to do than empathize with her. Inadvertently, she glanced at the clock. She had fifteen minutes to get completely ready before Dean arrived to pick her up. This getting ready process was not going well. She limped through taking care of her heel, cleaning up the bathroom (there seemed to be no hope for totally getting the polish off the white tile floor so that was coming out of Mari's security deposit), and finally, squeezed herself into her dress. It was almost unfair, she thought, for her to wear something so gorgeous, so sexy. But she could not resist the opportunity to dress up and go on a nice dinner date. It had been too long since she had done just that, and this dress had been sitting in her closet, her suitcases, her car, anywhere she had wishfully stuck it in hopes of getting to wear it. It was a sleek little black number with lace long sleeves and a hemline just short enough to turn heads but long enough not to be sleazy. When she added her red-orange pumps, which her nail polish would have matched, it was 5:59, and Dean knocked on the door.

Checking her hair one last time in the mirror, she felt a flutter of nerves in her stomach. _This could be your last first date, if Dean is right about his feelings_, she thought to herself. At least she looked beautiful, stunning, more attractive than she herself truly was. For one night, thanks to her long lusted-after dress, she was going to be a head-turner. She pulled open the door, and there Dean stood, one hand rubbing the back of his neck, teeth biting a little on his lower lip. His eyes roved her up and down, and his cheeks turned red.

"Wow, Rory," he breathed out the words with such genuine awe that she blushed too.

"I've had the dress for ages, but it's nice to finally have a chance to wear it," she replied modestly, smiling. She noticed that he was dressed in pressed khakis, a white button-down, and a well-fitted blazer, and that he had shaved carefully, leaving behind neither hair nor nicks. He was tall and dark and handsome, and she realized in an instant, that tonight had the makings of a wonderful evening.

"Well, you look incredible in it. I'm so lucky you're letting me take you out," His unabashed sincerity touched her in a soft, warm place in her heart. The touch barrier was broken immediately as they walked out. He wrapped an arm around her waist, strong fingers settling in on her hipbone, and she leaned into him. There was such warmth and comfort in the knowledge that, though this was a first date, Dean was no stranger. She had once known him so well that it was easy to relax into him again. The ease made her smile and converse with a relaxation she had not experienced in years. There was no flutter of nerves, no hammering of her heart, just that soft, gentle easiness that had once existed between them.

From that moment of relaxation, the evening floated on in an easy haze that demanded nothing troubling from Rory. Her stomach didn't lurch; her palms didn't sweat. He drove evenly to a charming, upscale seafood restaurant where he held the door for her and pulled out her chair. He was a better conversationalist than she remembered, and she learned that he was now a successful business consultant, a job that had earned him both respect and enough money to live very comfortably. He had no children, no pets, and no ex-wives except for Lindsay, and the remarkable parallels in his rootlessness and Rory's compelled her. He ate without spilling food on himself, and he complimented her several times without being overly simpering. They ordered coffee and dessert and sat talking for an hour after their plates were clean. By the time they left, the easy rapport between had taken on a life of its own, and they were holding hands as he walked her up the walk and ultimately the stairs to her house. Even though Tolstoy stood at the window baying, undoubtedly wanting Rory to come in and Dean to leave, Rory felt no awkwardness or hesitation when Dean put his hands on her waist, pulled her close, and kissed her, a thorough, enjoyable good night kiss that tasted comfortable and familiar.

With a promise to call her in the morning, he left for the evening after only that one sweet kiss, and she walked inside and tossed herself on the couch with a smile. Now _that _was a date; no rush, no fumbling, no awkwardness, no ruffled feathers, no discomfort. It had been as easy as going out with Mari or Lane for the evening, only neither Mari nor Lane would have looked so dashing in a suit. Tolstoy flopped his head down on her lap, sending a thin line of drool across the couch on the other side of her. "You're so gross," she said affectionately, scratching him under his ear the way he liked. He snorted and closed his eyes.

Rory basked in the moment. Was this what it felt like to have everything come together? To have a goofy, lovable dog sleeping on her lap while she relaxed in the glow of a good date? She kicked off her shoes and muttered a soft, "Damn." It was a combination of something like happiness and a little pain from the cut on her heel where she had stepped on that shard of glass earlier.

"Damn." She tried the word out again and smiled, leaning her head down onto the back of the couch. She knew she should move and try to avoid wrinkling or mussing her dress any further, especially since it was dry clean only. But it was hard to think about moving right now. She was experiencing contentment so relaxing it bordered on actual sleep. Or at least, she was until her phone buzzed insistently from her purse across the room by the door. With an annoyed grunt, she stood up, suddenly aware that her heel definitely hurt more than she had realized at all throughout the date. She limped to her purse, dug through its varied contents, and pulled out her phone. The screen flashed five new text messages, and she remembered that she had been ignoring her phone all through dinner and dessert. She flipped it open and started reading them one at a time.

"Hope your having a great time with BUBBA. Luv you," from her mother.

"MY WATER BROKE AGAIN," from Mari.

"Mari's water broke!" from Logan.

"False alarm. Nevermind. The Jumping Bean is still in the oven," from Mari.

"Busy in the morning? Wanna show you another Banks tradition. Bring the damn dog," from Tristan.

And just like that, she remembered the knots in her stomach and the awkwardness and the mystery of her evening with Tristan, a mere four days ago. Her contentment vanished, and her cheeks turned bright red and her palms started sweating.

Was she busy in the morning? Well, Dean was calling her in the morning.

Well, Dean might just have to call her while she was with Tristan. In a purely platonic sense. Because that was how she felt about Tristan. Platonic, dammit.

Right?

She snapped her phone shut without responding to his text message and tried some deep breathing to reclaim the feeling of serenity from her date earlier. It wasn't working. Just like that, Tristan DuGrey had thrown her off again.

She was going to have to start meditating if he kept this up.

* * *

**AN:** I know this chapter is a little short, but I'm not too hung up on symmetry right now, and this was a nice, kosher way to work this one out. I'm excited about this one. It was fun to conceive and fun to write and hopefully be fun to read. Let me know what you think!


	5. The Attack Rory Strikes Again

Not replying to Tristan's text until morning worked; he replied with a blasé "We'll try again later," and she started her day by cooking an omelet. She had never cooked an omelet before – she was Lorelai's daughter after all – but she had pulled up a recipe on her laptop and was determined that she could be one of Those Women. She had gone on a fabulous date last night in a fabulous dress with a tall attractive man, and women who enjoyed such things either hired someone to cook for them (something she certainly did not have the money to do) or they cooked their own food; they did not live off of frozen pizza and cold cereal. So she was going to make a cheese omelet and sprinkle in some bacon bits. She could have run to the store to get real bacon, but she was a little scared to try too much cooking all at once, and the bacon bits that she had bought to sprinkle on frozen pizza during her first grocery trip would suffice. In her pajama shorts and an oversized Yale tee shirt, she started on the journey of following the omelet recipe. The recipe directed her to melt butter, and she tried to figure out how hot she was supposed to make the stove in order to melt butter in this skillet.

Meanwhile, Tolstoy lay on the kitchen floor snoring. He spent an inordinate amount of time laying around and snoring when he wasn't baying at passing cars or drooling; he was just her speed of dog, and she had already come to love him in the mere four days she had had him, just as she had come to love this little rental home in her mere five days of being here. She cracked the eggs into the pan where the butter had melted and watched about a third of the shell splatter in with the egg itself.

"Well, shit," she muttered. How did Rachel Ray do this so easily on her cooking show? She tried using her fingers to scoop out the shell, but it was slow and laborious. Finally, picking up a little spoon, Rory tried to pick pieces of shell out one at a time and drop them into the waiting trash can. She noticed her nails, still haphazardly half-painted, as she worked and wondered if Dean had simply not noticed them or if he was such a sweetheart that he chose to ignore them, simply assuming that they were a sign that something had gone wrong. Either one worked for her, she supposed. Suddenly her phone rang on the counter. "Tolstoy, answer that," she joked as she wiped egg goo off of her hands. She scooped it up and answered it without looking at the Caller ID.

"Hey Rory. It's Tristan. I'm on my way over to change the batteries in the smoke detectors and some other stuff. I'll be there in about ten minutes, so have clothes on," she heard his glib, quite awake voice and wondered how early he had been up enjoying his Outer Banks tradition. She ignored the flutter in her stomach at hearing his voice, and the odd current that buzzed under her skin as she thought of Tristan possibly thinking of her with clothes off.

"Already dressed and making an omelet, DuGrey," she replied snarkily, "Why exactly are you stooping to doing maintenance instead of sending someone who works for you?"

"Because the old curmudgeon who does maintenance in the off-season hates dogs, and I could not in good conscience send him to face Cujo without telling him the animal was there, and of course, Ed then refused to set foot on the property. Should have fired him, but the man's about a hundred and five and is the only maintenance guy I have who is still here in the off-season," Even as she was listening to his voice, she heard the sound of tires in the driveway. He had obviously grossly exaggerated the ten minutes ETA.

"You're pulling in the driveway already? What, were you actually hoping to catch me with clothes off?" She blushed and chuckled simultaneously. There was a lengthy pause that she assumed was disapproval of her suggestive comment, and finally, she opened her mouth to apologize. That's when he spoke,

"I'm not there yet. Who's out in your driveway?" He spoke slowly, seemingly a little concerned.

Rory cursed herself silently for making assumptions and walked to the window. There was Dean, unbuckling his seatbelt and straightening his shirt collar, presumably preparing to walk up the steps to her front door and surprise her. She was not positive she wanted to be surprised; they had, after all, only been on one date (this time around, at least), and it had ended just like a first date should. A morning surprise seemed a little presumptuous. But her feelings softened instantly when she saw him reach across the car and pick up a very large coffee cup. Any man who came bearing coffee was a good man. She felt a smile appearing on her face and was proud of herself for smiling at this positive development in her life. She was moving in a healthy direction now; no more of this aimlessness she had been somehow embracing these past few years.

"Rory Gilmore, who is in your driveway?" Tristan's voice caught her off-guard. She had totally forgotten she was still on the phone. Awkwardness returned immediately, and she flushed an undoubtedly very ridiculous shade of crimson.

"Um… some guy I went on a date with last night…"

"A date? Well, la-dee-da, you move fast. Who is it? I know everybody local around here," he replied, sounding more amused than anything else. Rory felt a surge of annoyance. Shouldn't he be jealous? Hadn't they gone on a date just the other night? Hadn't they bathed Tolstoy together two days ago, laughing and splashing? Hadn't they effing had _sparks_? And what about that still unmentioned meeting overseas, still shrouded in angst and emotion and mystery? Sure she had been the one who had denied the possibility of them developing anything, but he should still sound jealous or at least disappointed. Hearing the knock on the door, she tried to reach into her internal peace and contentment she had had with Dean last night, to reclaim that easy relaxation.

"It's not a local. See you when you get here to do some maintenance… buddy," she tacked on the platonic term of endearment with more venom than necessary and hung up the phone. She smoothed her hair and walked to the door to open it. Dean's smile made her smile back and release her annoyance at Tristan.

"Good morning. I brought you coffee and two donuts. Is that enough to get me in the door?" He said, holding up a paper bag and the coffee cup she had seen through the window. She grinned.

"You could have gotten in the door without bearing gifts. Now, however, I'm just worried you're Greek, and I should beware," she replied. He looked puzzled, and she waved a hand to free him from trying to figure out the allusion. "Don't worry about it. Come on in."

They walked into the house, and Tolstoy, delightful watchdog that he was, did not stir at all from his faithful sleeping spot on the floor. Rory smiled affectionately at the pup and then guided Dean towards the couch. She took a seat there, and he knowingly took a seat in the armchair rather than crowding her by sitting down beside her.

"Thank you for bringing breakfast. I have a failed start to an omelet over there that demonstrates that I am not quite ready to fend for myself yet," she joked.

"Well, I'm happy to be a provider," he replied with a smile that somewhat belied his own joking.

"I'm happy to have that! Hey Dean, I want to warn you about something…" She glanced down at the time on her phone. Tristan would be here any minute.

"That sounds bad…"

"No, it's not bad. It's just… interesting… ironic… probably some other 'I' words I just can't think of right now."

"Then shoot."

"Tristan's on his way over. You, uh, remember Tristan?" Her voice was like a crab scuttling sideways across the beach rather than directly approaching its target. Dean looked genuinely confused.

"No… Who's that?"

Now there was a sign she had a problem if ever there was one. Here she was, having blown this whole history with Tristan into some distortedly large part of her high school years, and yet her high school boyfriend did not even remember him. Clearly she was not normal. "Oh, he was this guy at Chilton. You and him disagreed a couple times over some stuff. Blonde guy? Kinda rich?" She tried to sound really casual, even as her treacherous brain thought, _Gorgeous? Intriguing? Still giving me butterflies and making me think in questions at 29 years old?_ She needed a lobotomy.

"Oh yeah. That jerk-off. I'd forgotten his name. Man, he was a piece of work." Dean spoke and then stopped, and Rory stopped, too, waiting for the man to loop his brain back around to the original piece of news. "Oh wait, you said he's on his way over? You two stayed friends? What's he doing in the Outer Banks?"

She blushed crimson and then hated herself even more. There had been no blushing last night, no discomfort. Tristan was ruining everything. "It's a really long, drawn-out, and probably really boring story. But by chance, he's the owner and manager of this property I'm renting. He's coming by to do a little repair work."

Awkward silence descended, and she knew he wanted to ask a lot more questions but that her halting tone had prevented him from doing so. So, they were still sitting pretty quietly, her chewing on the edges of a donut, him sipping coffee, when Tristan opened the door, kicking his heels against the doorframe to knock dirt off of his boots before he entered. Rory's breath stalled in her lungs. Tristan was in an Army sweatshirt and ripped up, stained, ratty jeans. He should have looked like a bum. He actually looked gorgeous. His face went from neutral to hard in about three seconds though when he saw Dean; there was obviously nothing forgotten by this man about their shared history.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" Tristan said, eyes stony. Dean looked confused, his jaw tightened a little too, and his eyes displayed a level of shock that Rory could not understand, but he tried to sound neutral and casual.

"Looking for another chance with Rory."

"Aren't we all?" Tristan replied with so much sarcasm that the words seemed to fly through the air and pierce her skin like arrows. She felt a surge of guilt and then anger at Tristan for making her feel guilty. They were just friends, damn it. Dean seemed oblivious to the fact that Tristan's sarcasm was directed at her, not him, though, and he tensed further.

"I wasn't joking."

"Yet you were still funny. Funny old world. Anyway, I'll only by here a few minutes. Y'all get back to whatever you were doing before I barged in," Tristan's pulse ticked unpleasantly fast in his neck, but his voice returned to fairly neutral. Rory felt the strangest urge to smile at hearing the once totally upper-crust DuGrey man use the term "y'all," but it faded quickly as she watched Tristan tap his leg, calling Tolstoy to follow him, and head into the bedroom, taking her dog with him. It made her feel like she was some sort of traitor, which was ridiculous.

"Wow," Dean murmured. Rory nodded.

"I know. That wasn't like him, though. He's actually been really nice since I've been here."

"What?" Dean frowned. "No, I wasn't talking about his attitude."

Rory felt confused for a few seconds, and then she realized what had floored Dean: the arm Tristan no longer had. She remembered the shock and shameful revulsion she had first felt when she had discovered the missing arm in that makeshift overseas hospital and felt a surge of sympathy for Dean. There was something incredibly difficult about seeing someone familiar so altered; every time you looked away, your brain reverted to the saved data, the old image, and you had to face surprise all over again when you looked back. She was just now getting past it herself.

"He lose it in a Porsche accident?" Dean muttered, half-jokingly. Rory felt a sudden, intense flare of anger.

"No. He lost it in Afghanistan fighting for his country," Her voice was suddenly as hard and nasty as Tristan's had been when he walked in. Dean immediately looked ashamed and apologized in a mumble, but it did nothing to soften the fierce protective knot that had formed in her stomach. With the same ferocity that she had attacked her mother when she had slighted Tristan, she now attacked Dean. "You wouldn't be able to understand that because you were busy being stateside cheating on your wife and such. Oh and marrying one woman while in love with another one. That was another _stunning_ move you've made in your adult life. So good thinking on knocking an American hero. Really smacks of your integrity and maturity."

She knew she should be ashamed of herself, but instead, she was still just angry when Dean, shocked expression ablaze, had stormed out, slamming the door shut behind him and spinning gravel in the driveway. Hugging her knees to her chest, she tried to use her mental strength to force the corners of her mouth out of an angry scowl. Tristan walked out of the bathroom and looked around, Tolstoy tagging along happily on his heels.

"Who slammed the door?"

"Don't be an idiot. Who do you think slammed it?"

"What kind of asshole slams doors in a house that's not his?" Tristan wiped his hand on his jeans and then surveyed her serious expression, adding a frown to his own handsome features. "Need me to go kill him?"

"No. This one was my fault. I was mean."

"Oh God forbid, Rory should be mean." His now-familiar sarcasm made her smile instead of frown this time. "What the hell prompted you to be mean to him?""

"He made a snide comment about your arm," Perhaps Rory should have shielded Dean from having his lone idiotic verbal mistake known, but she was still too angry to do so. The expected anger did not flash across Tristan's face though. Instead, his expression became guarded, and he said nothing. Rory had seen this expression before, almost nineteen months before in Afghanistan: it was shame. Tristan was still battling the same shame that he was somehow "less than" because of the missing arm. She hugged her knees tighter to her chest. The fierce protectiveness bubbled again, still at a boil from earlier. It felt as if she would do anything if she could stop him from feeling ashamed.

"So you told him off," Tristan finally said.

"Nastily," she confirmed.

"How nastily?" He walked over and dropped himself onto the couch beside her. She could not help drawing the momentary comparison between him and Dean: Dean, who had chosen the armchair, and Tristan, who had chosen the couch at her side.

"Told him he was nothing but an adulterer who married his first wife while he was still in love with me."

"Damn," he whistled. "You're a black widow these days."

"He shouldn't have said anything bad about you," The words sounded dumb and slightly petulant. Tristan scooted a little closer to her and extended his arm.

"Come here." His voice was such a clear and unimposing command that she obeyed, releasing her knees and sliding over. He wrapped her close, the gesture strangely natural. Ignoring her suddenly thudding heart, she tried to think of her date last night with Dean. _Peace, relaxation, contentment, that's the ticket. Today was just a blip. This second chance with Dean is going to be great_, she tried to tell herself, but it was hard to hear her conscious thoughts over her quickened pulse.

"You are not my protector. I appreciate it, but you can't keep pushing people away because they say one nasty thing about me. You wanna push your nosey, reverse-snob mother away? Fine. You wanna kick that fuddy-duddy Dean to the curb? Great. But don't do it because they said one little thing about me. I can take care of myself," he told her quietly, speaking down, lips almost touching her hair as he spoke. Her stomach stirred, and she wondered how this position could feel so sensible and how it could be such a mix of platonic, almost sibling-like ease and yet stomach-flipping, heart-pounding butterflies. "Plenty of people are going to have something to say and plenty more to think about me only having half the right number of arms."

She turned her face up abruptly and glared at him. "Well, they aren't going to say it around me."

"You're sweet, Mary, but really, it's not necessary. I'm a big boy," He looked down into her eyes and smiled at her glare. She was all too aware of how close their faces were, and her breath caught in her lungs.

"You don't deserve to be slighted, DuGrey," she meant to say it lightly, easily, but the words escaped in a breathy whisper. He shook his head, and she didn't know whether he did so to tell her she was wrong or simply to tell her to be quiet. The air crackled in the air around them, sparks danced in their eyes, and Rory felt her heart lurch. His mouth seemed to be getting closer; she could feel his breath like a caress against her skin, and she licked her lips, her tongue nearly touching his lips as she did so, so close were their mouths to one another. Her pulse spiked yet again, and where his arm rested around her seemed to be on fire.

She was so turned on, she felt she would die if he did not kiss her.

And that was when the door opened and Dean walked back in.

X

Rory should have been grateful that Dean's quick forgiveness and reappearance had kept her from compromising her plan for a normal, stable, content romantic experience. After all, around Tristan, she was a bundle of nerves and fluttering and messiness. Yet she could not shake the feeling of their mouths so close together, and it would likely bother her in her dreams for nights to come. Tonight, however, she was going to try to avoid it. Through Hannah and Mary Malone, those two sweet, quirky young ladies she had foolishly been jealous of at the bonfire, she had found herself invited to a "Girls' Night" with a bunch of locals. First, it had been a phone call from Mary Malone where the young woman had basically demanded that Rory join them for drinks at a local hangout because they wanted the dish on her and the "dreamboat" who was staying at the nearby hotel, i.e. Dean. Rory had refused hesitantly but finally gave in when Hannah called and repeated the demand in the exact same words. So now Rory was wearing a pair of dark wash jeans, a glittery white camisole, and a soft red cardigan sweater and riding in a car with the two women nearly a decade her junior while hoping that Tolstoy would not get too lonely without her this evening.

"First, you get Tristan, a highly eligible bachelor, might I add, and then you are followed into a town by an absolute hottie. What is your secret?" Mary Malone was driving, only half paying attention to the road and scaring Rory half to death with her reckless vehicle management. Mary Malone and Hannah were both playing the young woman's game of dressing for their desire to attract men and look flashy rather than for the weather, and Rory felt cold just looking at their mini-skirts and halter tops.

"I have no idea. If I knew my secret, I'd have capitalized on it and gotten married by now. Committing to taking on Tolstoy is the most commitment I've had in years," Rory admitted with an easy grin. It was a piece of cake to like these silly but genuine girls, so she was having no trouble conversing with them pretty openly.

"He is a cutie," Hannah replied easily, not seeming to think it was weird to compare men and dogs on an attractiveness scale. "But not as cute as Ethan. I'm totally gonna marry this one, MM, and leave you all alone."

"Ethan's a bum who waits tables with us. He's even more aimless than Hannah and me, so there's not a chance they'll get married," Mary Malone said in an aside to Rory, earning her a slap from her friend.

"So not true. Ethan's a MEDICAL student who is waiting tables on this semester off and helping his mom manage the general store one town over. He's great. She's just jealous."

"He's a bum. In spite of being a medical student."

"How much of a bum can a medical student be?" Rory interjected as they pulled into the parking lot, and both girls laughed as if she had said something terribly funny and then dragged her inside. The bar was a bedraggled honky tonk, but it became clear to Rory immediately that it was the hot spot in the area. At the bar, a couple of women waved to Mary Malone and Hannah, and Rory was surprised to recognize one of them. It was Shannon from the animal shelter, a woman who was not only vaguely familiar but also close to her age. Hallelujah. Shannon smiled at her as she slid onto a nearby bar stool.

"Hi. Rory right? How's the hound dog?" Shannon looked pretty and understated, and Rory noticed a thin gold band on her hand that spoke of someone else also thinking she was pretty.

"He's great. Amazing actually. His name is Tolstoy," Rory replied, smiling.

"Are you joking?" Her voice was flat, dry, but friendly, and Rory knew in an instant that this woman would be able to bust out dry quips that would make people laugh out loud.

"Nope. His name really is Tolstoy."

"What a mouthful for a good ol' boy hound dog," Shannon chuckled. "Glad you got him. So how exactly did you get roped in with Hannah and MM?"

"We didn't rope her in! She was delighted to join us," Hannah defended. "Now I'm glad you two know each other already because you bonded over fleabags, but lemme introduce Rory around. Rory, this is Danielle, and Sarah, and Shannon, of course, and this is Vivian."

Danielle was short, fat, and in her mid-twenties with ringlet curls dyed too red and a big, warm smile that made Rory like her immediately. Sarah looked to be over thirty, and she was drawn and quiet-looking; Rory could not even begin to see how she could be connected to the effervescent duo that had dragged her here. Finally, she turned her eyes to Vivian and could not help but feel humbled. Vivian made Hannah and MM look a little plain by being just as beautiful but several years older and several hundred thousand wealthier if her designer clothing was an indicator. Vivian smiled, but the expression did not reach her eyes. In fact, she looked at Rory as if she were some sort of dangerous foreign bug that must be exterminated quickly. Rory first wondered if it had something to do with Tristan, but then she noticed that Vivian wore the two tell-tale signs of marriage on her left hand, both of which looked staggeringly expensive.

"Everyone, this is Rory, Tristan's Rory," Mary Malone waggled her eyebrows suggestively. "She's come to drink and make merry with us this evening as we celebrate being women. In fact, I'm going to go ask them to put on 'Man, I Feel Like a Woman' right this second. Someone order some shots while I'm gone." She floated off, hips wiggling artfully under her skirt as she strolled.

"One of these days, these girls are going to get married off and there will be no one to drag us out for things like this," Shannon said with a laugh, and the other women chorused their agreement. With the exception of Vivian, they circled the wagons around Rory to make her feel included and welcome, and after a few shots and nearly an hour of conversation, they were all on the dance floor. The frivolity (and the fun, familiar fuzziness of having just a little too much to drink) reminded Rory of how much she missed Mari and her mother; they were the party girls in her life, and they would have loved to be on an outing like this. But with one pregnant and one finally settling down, it was up to Rory to enjoy this while she could.

As a few of them regrouped at the bar for another drink and a chance to catch their breath, Hannah started a new conversation, even sillier than any of the ones they had already been having.

"So, you're on a desert island, and you can have any one of the dreamy men in your life with you. Which one would you choose? Danielle first," Hannah asked, taking her eyes away from the dance floor where Sarah and Mary Malone were still dancing to instead look at the women closer to her.

"Hmmm… Can I say George Clooney?" Danielle asked, grinning, weight slumped over just a little sideways in that sloppy, lazy way that a woman who is buzzing has.

"Is he in your life?"

"He's in my fantasy life!" Danielle whooped, and they all laughed raucously, leaning on one another and enjoying the joke a little too long. Rory recognized that they were making slight fools of themselves, but she was enjoying it too much to care.

"Okay, okay. Accepted. You, Shan." Hannah prompted when the laughter died down. Shannon blushed bright red and mumbled something. "What, Shan?"

"Mark," Shannon said a little louder, and the women responded with a mix of playful boos and squeals at the sweetness of the woman choosing her very own husband of ten years.

"Well after THAT ridiculously adorable note, Rory, who would you choose?"

"C'mon, you know she's going to choose, Triiiiiiistaaaaaan. He's a total babe, and she can't even think about him without getting all… squirmy," Danielle teased, saying the word squirmy with such a clear double meaning that Rory did, in fact, squirm. She thought about the choice, and even a little drunk, she knew what decision she needed to make publically because it was the same one she needed to make privately.

"Dean. I'm going with Dean. Sweet to the core and loves me already," Rory's tongue fumbled on the words a little, slurring them, "'sides, Tristan and I are just friends."

"YEAH RIGHT," the women all exploded, laughing and leaning on each other for support all over again. Except for Vivian who looked right at Rory with eyes flashing dangerously, narrowing them as if to try to determine if the other woman was telling the truth.

Rory wondered what on earth the rich bitch's problem was and took another shot, just so she wouldn't have to waste any more energy thinking about it.

The hangover tomorrow morning was going to be death, but right now, it felt worth it. She rose to her feet again and danced her way back out onto the floor.

* * *

**AN: **This is much faster than my usual update! I must be feeling inspired for this particular story. I'm really enjoying your reviews and seeing what you like and dislike, so keep 'em coming! Getting those story alert emails is great, but it doesn't provide me any concrete feedback, which is what helps the story get better. Hope you're enjoying it as much as when you started reading it! Thanks, y'all!


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